The race for the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film is off and running, with more than half a dozen countries announcing their selections so far and dozens more set to do so before the Academy’s October 2 deadline.

The most high-profile films to be announced so far are Sweden’s “The Square,” a black comedy from director Ruben Ostlund that won the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, and Germany’s “In the Fade,” a drama from Fatih Akin that also played in Cannes, where Diane Kruger won the best-actress award.

Ostlund’s last film, “Force Majeure,” made the nine-film Oscar shortlist in 2014 but was not one of the final five nominees. “The Square,” which stars Claes Bang as an embattled museum director and Elisabeth Moss as an American reporter, was described by TheWrap in Cannes as “a bold, generous and marvelously constructed exploration of its director’s favorite question: ‘Aren’t we humans a sorry lot?'”

“In the Fade” is a drama about a woman who seeks revenge after her husband and son are killed in a bombing. TheWrap’s Cannes review called it “a solidly well made, straight-down-the-line drama; it neither reinvents the wheel nor tries to do so.”

Akin’s previous films include “The Edge of Heaven,” which was Germany’s Oscar submission in 2007. Its failure to be nominated, along with other celebrated films like Romania’s “4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days” and Mexico’s “Silent Light,” spurred a change in the Oscar nominating process the following year.

“The Square” and “In the Fade” are the best known of the Oscar entries so far, which also include Azerbaijan’s “Pomegranate Orchard,” Bosnia and Herzogovina’s “Men Don’t Cry,” the Dominican Republic’s “Woodpeckers,” Iraq’s “The Dark Wind,” Nepal’s “White Sun” and Turkey’s “Ayla.”

Switzerland submitted “The Divine Order,” director Petra Volpe’s look at the movement to gain women the right to vote in that country, a change that didn’t take place until the early 1970s.

The Oscar foreign-language race has reached 80 entries in each of the last three years, including a record 85 last year.

This year’s potential entries include Aki Kaurismaki’s “The Other Side of Hope” from Finland, Sebastian Lelio’s “A Fantastic Woman” from Chile and any of a number of films from France, including Robin Campillo’s “BPM (Beats Per Minute),” Francois Ozon’s “L’Enfant Double,” Laurent Cantet’s “The Workshop” and Michel Hazanavicius’ “Redoubtable.”

Director Michael Haneke gave Austria an Oscar winner in 2013 with “Amour” and could be represented again with “Happy End,” though the film is far more abrasive and (deliberately) unlikable than “Amour.”

And Russian director Andrey Zvyagintsev’s “Loveless” won some of the best reviews of any film in Cannes this year, though the famously political Russian selection committee could balk at a drama that takes such an unsparing look at the troubles in his society.

TheWrap has compiled a list of all the announced films, with links to trailers, here.

23 Foreign Crime Dramas to Stream on Netflix, From 'Luther' to 'Bordertown' (Photos)

Netflix has brought over hundreds of programs from overseas, and no genre is more universal than the police drama.

"Luther" (UK) Idris Elba stars as an obsessive police detective who loses control of his personal life as he gets caught up in a psychological game of cat-and-mouse with the female murderer he's investigating.

BBC

"Wallander" (Sweden) Based on the Swedish crime novels by Henning Mankell, the series of feature-length episodes stars Krister Henriksson as the volatile police officer Kurt Wallander.

TV4

"Happy Valley" (UK) A police sergeant (Sarah Lancashire), still grieving her daughter's suicide, becomes obsessed with finding the man who raped her after he's released from prison. There's nothing happy about this valley ...

BBC

"The Fall" (UK) Gillian Anderson plays a police superintendent who is tasked with overseeing an investigation into the serial killer Paul Spector, played by "Fifty Shades of Grey" star Jamie Dornan.

BBC

"Marcella" (UK) A former detective ("Pushing Daisies" star Anna Friel) is left by her husband and rejoins the force when a serial killer reappears after 11 years.

Netflix

"Bordertown" (Finland) An officer of Finland's National Bureau of Investigation (Ville Virtanen) moves to a small border town in an attempt to live a quieter life with his family, but he's unwittingly drawn into a complex and dangerous murder investigation.

Yle TV1

"Mar de plástico" (Spain) The mayor's daughter (Mara López) is murdered in the region of Spain known as the "plastic sea" because of the large number of greenhouses, and an Afghanistan veteran (Rodolfo Sancho) is tasked with the case.

Antena 3

"Broadchurch" (UK) David Tennant and Olivia Colman play a pair of detectives investigating the death of an 11-year-old boy. The series was later remade with the title "Gracepoint" for Fox in the U.S. with Tennant reprising his role.

ITV

"Paranoid" (UK) A team of investigators, led by "Game of Thrones" and "Luther" alum Indira Varma, must solve the murder of a beloved physician when a mysterious "ghost detective" anonymously sends them clues.

ITV

"Shetland" (UK) A detective, played by Douglas Henshall, and his team rush to solve the murder of an elderly woman on the Shetland Islands in Scotland before tourists arrive for the region's annual Up Helly Aa festivals.

BBC

"Ripper Street" (UK) A period drama set in the months following the Jack the Ripper murders, three detectives (Matthew Macfadyen, Jerome Flynn, Adam Rothenberg) investigate a new series of killings that suggest he may have returned.

BBC

"Hinterland" (Wales) A procedural drama starring Richard Harrington as a Welsh police officer who investigates murders and disappearances in the coastal town of Aberystwyth.

S4C

"Dicte" (Denmark) Following her divorce, an investigative crime reporter (Iben Hjejle) moves back to her hometown and causes friction with the police when she tries to investigate their cases.

TV2 Danmark

"Hotel Beau Séjour" (Belgium) In a small Belgian village, a young teenager (Lynn Van Royen) wakes up to find her own dead body in the bathroom. With no memory of her death, she begins to investigate her own murder.

Eén

"The Sniffer" (Ukraine) Kirill Käro plays a man with an unusually heightened sense of smell who uses his ability to assist the police in solving crimes.

ICTV

"Jack Taylor" (Ireland) A maverick detective ("Game of Thrones" star Iain Glen) is fired for assaulting a politician and is forced to become a private investigator, taking on cases the police won't.

TV3

"River" (UK) A detective (Stellan Skarsgård) is haunted by the voices in his head as he investigates the murder of one of his his old partner (Nicola Walker).

BBC

"La Esquina del Diablo" (Colombia) After her father is murdered, Ana Garcia (Ana Serradilla) joins the special forces to take down a powerful drug dealer.

UniMás

"Four Seasons in Havana" (Spain/Cuba) Set in the 1980s as Cuba entered a period of extreme poverty caused by the dissolution of the Soviet Union, "Four Seasons" stars Jorge Perugorría as the hard-drinking police lieutenant Mario Conde.

Netflix

"Mind Game" (Malaysia) A paralegal (Tay Ping Hui) teams up with a police officer, a psychologist and a woman with the ability to see the future in search of his long-lost sister.

Netflix

"The Lava Field" (Iceland) A detective (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson) is called on to investigate the apparent suicide of a wealthy man, but as the case begins to resemble a murder his own secrets come to light.

Pegasus Pictures

"The Break" (Belgium) Brussels detective Yoann Peeters (Yoann Blanc) moves back to his hometown following the death of his wife and is drawn into investigating the death of an African football player.

Netflix

"Case" (Iceland) A reckless, heavy-drinking lawyer (Magnús Jónsson) teams with the police to investigate the apparent suicide of a teenage girl.

Saga Film

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Hailing from the U.K. and Iceland to Cuba to Malaysia, Netflix has imported dozens of foreign dramas stateside

Netflix has brought over hundreds of programs from overseas, and no genre is more universal than the police drama.

Steve Pond, awards editor at TheWrap, is also author of the L.A. Times bestseller The Big Show. He has been covering entertainment for more than two decades, and is the industry's most knowledgeable Academy Awards prognosticator.